To Be Smoke on the Water
by Theivius Authorius
Summary: The greatest part of a heist is the escape, any good thief can tell you that. But due to a shortage of supplies, can Sly keep his getaways clean? A small story that I'll try to work on over the coming weeks. (Put on Hold for lack of inspiration to continue)


**It's been a while, but it's nice to be back! You know the drill; Like, hate, confused, request, put in a review! Thanks!**

Thieves are, if you think about it, artists. We move, we flow, we influence people's emotions (like, say, when you steal a priceless painting and make them ticked as heck...). But not all of us are the same, despite the stereotype of all of us being, quote/unquote, "Criminals". We're different! Different styles, different looks, _very _different senses of morality... don't believe me? I'll use this as an example; Say you're running down the streets of paris. It's night-time, and you're being chased by a particularly blood-thirsty and gun-totting warthog, and his three rat cronies. You accidentally run yourself into a dead-end. What do you do?

Option one: find a way to escape. You look around, and you see a fire escape to your left. But you slip, and smile as you see it. One of the rats sees your emotion, pulls out a bomb of some kind (don't ask me where he got it), then proceeds to destroy said escape. Option two: any other way out? Now you see a metal door to your right. You try to open it, but realize it's locked. Then the warthog pulls a key ring from his pocket, twists it around his hoof, and grins, showing a mouth-full of diamond and gold teeth. Now the creeps are creeping in, sneering in delight at the thought of your destruction. Prognosis: not good. Expect to crawl out of this with five broken ribs and a severe concussion, if you're lucky.

Don't worry yet, you still have some options left, even if they don't seem like great ones at the time. If you're somebody like Bentley, you can just whip out your sleep darts, and send the meat heads into dreamland. Simple, effective, and you walk out of this scot-free.

And if you're a guy like Murray, then you can just give them a ticket to the knock-out express, dining car equipped with knuckle sandwiches included (free of charge, of course).

But, if you're somebody like _me_... then things can get a bit tougher. I'm decently strong, and with my cane, I'd be able to make short work out of two of these guys, maybe even three. But, genius that I am, I forget to bring the stick with me. Smart, eh? So, I know what you're thinking, "He's roadkill", right? Wrong. As I pull out a small orb from the pack on my leg, I smile slightly. Luckily, they haven't caught on yet, I don't think they even saw me pull it from my pocket... I always love it when it catches them by surprise. A smoke bomb.

The hissing sound fills the small area, and as the thugs try to catch their breaths with all of the smoke in their lungs, I ducked out between a rodent and the big fella, then book it back to the safe house. See? The raccoon lives!

As I run into the safe house, I'm greeted by my wheel-chaired friend, Bentley. He has a sarcastic smile on his face. "_So_... How was the walk?"

I laugh half-heartedly. "Great. I made a couple new friends on my way back, too. I've had a looong night." I fell face-first onto the couch, it creaked in response. _'Note to self: on no circumstances will I ever. EVER. Leave my cane at home.' _

I heard thumping footsteps to my right, Murray must have walked in.

He smiled. "Well, I'm glad you're regaining your favor to Paris; it was nice to have a change, but I think we all can agree that we're glad to be back."

I mumbled into the cushion, "Agreed."

I heard the creaking of wheels moving further away from me. "Well, now that you've decided to join us, Sly, I have some less-than-favorable news for you."

I laid still for a second. When Bentley says 'Less-than-favorable', it usually means that something really bad's about to happen. Or has happened. Hopefully the first option.

"What're you talking about?" I moved up to a sitting position.

"Well, as you know, one of our greatest skills is our ability to escape those who try to kill us."

"You don't need to remind me about that, Bent; I've had enough examples of escaping for a week."

He gave me a mixed look of confusion and empathy. But he went on. "Anyway, we can get out of a pinch in a pinch, so to speak." He grinned, but when my expression didn't change, he continued. "Murray and I can get away easily, and you can easily do the same in the right circumstance; but in trouble, especially without your cane..." I glared at him, much too tired to try and make an argument or worry about kindness at the moment. "...you're stuck with one thing..."

"...Smoke bombs. A Cooper's best friend. Go on, what's the bad news?"

"Well, you know the ingredients to the bombs, so I won't go on-"

"What? Ingredients, are we cooking something?"

We turned to Murray, who apparently just tuned into our conversation. I shrugged at the turtle, deciding to teach him the little I knew about Chemistry. I didn't exactly have a skill for explaining scientific knowledge, but I gave it a shot.

"Well, you can't expect a ball to just explode with smoke when you chuck it to the ground; it doesn't work like that. The things inside it have to react to each other for it to work. In a nutshell, you take some Water Vapor, Potassium Oxide, Nitrogen, and Carbon Dioxide. When they're all mixed in the right way, the white color of the vapor and the potassium carbonate mix in the air and BOOM! Instant smoke screen." I left out some key pieces of information, to be sure that the big guy didn't try to make one and hurt himself, but those were the basics of it.

"Cool..."

"Anyway, the bad news; We're out of our supply of usable Nitrogen."

My tail twitched in disbelief. "I haven't been using the smoke bombs _that_ much, have I?"

He looked down sheepishly, "No, but I... err... In a project that Penelope and I've been working on, I kinda... sorta... needed it?" His sheepish smile grew.

I frowned for a second, but then smiled. "Will you ever tell us what you're working on?"

He shook his head, returning the smile. "Not until it's finished. Anyway, we need to get our hands on some more nitrogen, and I've got the perfect plan to do it. But without the smoke bombs, you'll have to rely on staying completely out of sight. Will that be a problem?" His sarcasm was getting better.

"Oh," I said with a dramatic stretch, "I'm sure we'll get the job done."

Murray slumped his shoulders, "We can never relax around here, can we?"

I put my hand on his shoulder, "We will, big guy; we will."

I don't think he believed me completely, but he gave a sad smile.

Turning to Bentley, I grabbed my cane. "So where to, Wizard?"

He frowned. "Now, that's the tricky part about this; the only location that I could find with a large enough sample of Nitrogen that we won't interfere with their work is... well..."

"Spit it out, Bentley! Where do I need to drive, I'm all ears!"

He looked at me, "I'll give you a hint," which I mentally groaned at, "It's an acronym, with four letters."

Murray cocked his head slightly, shaking it at the turtle. "English, please?"

As soon as I heard Bentley, I wish I hadn't. "You _do _realize how high their security is, right?"

He looked down. "Yep. But it's our best bet for stealing the Nitrogen without anyone noticing. Any other lab would notice their supply was lost."

"Why would they even have Nitrogen-"

Murray interrupted my thought, "Will _somebody_ tell me where we're going?!" He hated when we didn't include him in conversations, however brief. I don't think he was so happy about what I told him either.

I looked at him solemnly. "C.E.R.N."

"... Oh."


End file.
